Hospital A&E departments are at breaking point as they face ‘intolerable pressures’ and a ‘workforce crisis’, a report has revealed.

Emergency facilities need urgent aid after 62 per cent of doctors said their job was unsustainable, while 94 per cent regularly work unpaid overtime just to keep up standards, the College of Emergency Medicine study showed.

Trainee doctors are also snubbing a career in A&E, leaving departments desperate for an injection of fresh talent.

Dr Taj Hassan, CEM vice president and one of the report’s authors, said: ‘We need prompt action by relevant stakeholders on the three key recommendations in this report.

‘A failure to address these issues will further worsen the present workforce crisis affecting emergency departments.’

Some doctors are turning their back on Britain entirely, with a tenfold increase in the number emigrating to forge a career abroad since 2009.

Dr Andrew Goddard, of the Royal College of Physicians, said ‘an unmanageable workload and difficult working conditions’ was making emergency medicine ‘unattractive to trainees’.

A Department of Health spokesman admitted A&Es needed more support and pointed to the £500million, two-year investment plan as a way of reducing the strain on emergency wards.